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will be analyzed based upon the three layers of religion
mentioned above.
"Kierkegaard believes that Religiousness A involves an
individual striving toward concrete actualization of self within
the context of a primordial choice that prefers good to evil and
that acknowledges the place of at least one other individual"
(Pattison 174). For Kierkegaard, the limitations of the ethical
sphere imply the need for a leap to faith that extends beyond
these limitations, a leap to faith that takes shape within the
religious sphere. Septimus Smith’s wife Rezia arguably
represents also the limit of Kierkegaard’s ethical sphere’s duty
and responsibility, in that she acts nobly in terms of
Religiousness A but ultimately fails to prevent Septimus from
committing suicide. In Kierkegaard’s view, it is only the leap to
faith that takes shape within the religious sphere that ultimately
overcomes the overwhelming power of death and the dread
associated with recognizing one’s finitude. For Kierkegaard,
whose ultimate concern is what it means to be a Christian in
Christendom, "God’s grace is the way by which the individual
in faith ultimately finds victory over the power of death"
(Shaffer 191).
On the other hand, Religiousness B—which Kierkegaard
identifies specifically with Christianity—involves the individual
accepting God’s grace, involves her or him accepting that "The
individual’s inability to fulfill the ethical demand requires God’s
saving grace and forgiveness" (Watkin 79). Clarissa sees herself
as somehow connected with Septimus Smith, and he represents
for her a powerful symbol of the power of death, while he also
serves as a compliment to her concept of the self in dissipation.
For Kierkegaard, such a recognition by the individual of the
personality’s need to ultimately identify passionately with
something that transcends self might ultimately offer an
opportunity– though it is not realized in Clarissa’s case– for the
leap to faith that takes shape in the religious sphere.
Lastly, like the phenomenon of freedom from which human self-
consciousness and human recognition of the inevitably of death
arises, the phenomenon of death transcends self in an archetypal
sense: It is impossible to avoid the archetypal nature of death in
that death confronts all individuals. With paradoxical optimism,
Kierkegaard sees death for the Christian as the point at which
God’s light shines brightest: In a journal entry from 1844,
Kierkegaard remarks, "There is a beautiful expression which the
common man uses about dying: that God or our Lord ‘brightens’
for him" (107). Although death is a potentially ugly physical
reality—as becomes gruesomely apparent in the suicide of
Septimus Smith (Woolf 200) – Kierkegaard sees death for the
Christian as being the point at which God shines brightest.
To sum up, Kierkegaard believes that a good person, such as
Clarissa, cannot in the context of what it means to be a Christian
ultimately arrive at salvation under her own power; what it
means to be a Christian in Christendom is to ultimately make an
appeal to God’s grace. Therefore, the religious sphere of
Kierkeggard also suggests that sticking himself to this sphere,
human being faces several limitations, which cannot guarantee
his success and salvation.
5 Conclusion
Mrs. Dalloway is Woolf’s first successful experimental novel, in
which she achieves radical transformation of her novelistic art in
the light of her own theory of novel as she stated in her essay,
"Modern Fiction: the depiction of myriads of impressions, a
luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope,’ and the atoms as
they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall […]
however, disconnected and incoherent in appearance" (Woolf
105). In the era of competitive experimentation, alongside Joyce
and Proust, Woolf shapes her novelistic art in accordance with
her own individualistic aesthetics and succeeds in dismantling
the traditional novel as it was handed down to her by
eliminating the "Scaffolding and bricks of conventional plot and
the ‘effort of breaking with strict representationalism" (Woolf
313). Focusing on the issue of existence, Woolf tries to suggest
her own situation in her novel by characterizing several people.
This study was an attempt to analyze Mrs. Dalloway from the
perspective of Søren Kierkegaard as a forerunner scholar in
theory of Existentialism. This study was divided into three parts
of "the asthetic sphere", "the ethical sphere" and "the religious
sphere." In the first two parts of this paper, Richard and Clarissa
as the representative of aesthetic sphere and ethical sphere,
respectively, were analyzed. In the last part of this study, the
religious sphere was applied to two characters Rezia, as the
representative of Religious A, and Clarisa, as the representative
of Religious B and finally, death, as the final layer of religious
sphere was applied in general. The outcome suggests the
limitations of each sphere for human being. Furthermore, this
study shows that the characters in Mrs. Dalloway cannot get any
salvation by focusing on just one sphere and overlooking the
others spheres.
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Primary Paper Section: A
Secondary Paper Section: AA, AJ
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